e born mountaineer, and his thoughts had gradually
absorbed themselves in memories of the past. Joe Lorey's sudden command
to halt was somewhat startling, therefore, even to his iron nerves.
Instinctively and instantly he heeded the gruff order.

Dusk was falling and he could not very clearly see the moonshiner, at
first, as he stepped from behind the shelter of his rock. He moved
slowly on, a step or two, hands half raised to show that they did not
hold weapons, recovering quickly from the little shock of the surprise,
planning an explanation to whatever mountaineer had thought his coming
up the trail at that hour a suspicious circumstance. That he was one of
Layson's friends from the low-country would, he thought, be proof enough
that he was not an enemy of mountain-folk. Layson, he knew, was
generally regarded with good will by the shy dwellers in this
wilderness.

But when he clearly saw Joe Lorey's face a thrill shot through him far
more lasting than the little tremor born, at first, of the command to
halt.

He had not seen the youth before. Joe, half jealous, half contemptuous,
of Layson's fine friends from the bluegrass, had kept out of their
sight, although he had watched them furtively from covert almost
constantly; and, it chanced, had not been so much as mentioned by either
Frank or Madge while the party from the bluegrass lingered at the camp,
save when Madge told the tragic story of her childhood while Holton
stood aloof, for reasons of his own, hearing but imperfectly.

Now the unexpected sight of the young man, for some reasons, made the
old one gasp in horror. There was that about the face, the attitude, the
very way the lithe moonshiner held his gun, which made him seem, to the
astonished man whom he had halted, like a grim vision from the past. "My
God!" he thought. "Can the dead have come to life?"

For an instant he went weak. His blood chilled and the quick beating of
his heart changed the deep breathing of his recent swinging stride into
short, sharp gasps.

It was only for an instant, though. His life had not been one to teach
him to falter long in the face of an emergency. Quickly he regained
poise and reasoned calmly.

"No," he thought, "it's Joe, Ben Lorey's son. Th' father's layin' where
he has been, all these years. I'm skeery as a girl."

Joe advanced upon him truculently. "Say," he demanded, "what's yer name
an' what ye want here?" His ever ready rifle nested in the crook of his
l